Sebring 12 Hours – Hour 7 Update

Having passed the halfway point the seventh hour started almost identical to the end of the sixth hour. Montagny slowly but steadily moved away from McNish. Sarrazin and Capello took over, but the gap remained the same.

Just over five and a half hours remained when David Brabham lost control of his Acura ARX-02a and spun into the tyre barriers. When the pit lane reopened the Risi Competizione #62 came in, with its main rival (#95 Ferrari) staying out winning back some of the lost ground.

The Patrón Highcroft Racing crew replaced the rear bodywork and wing that were damaged in the shunt and sent the car out again, with Scott Sharp behind the wheel. The Acura had gone to P5 in the race.

The cars were behind the safety car for almost twenty minutes, but just after 5.15pm the green flag was waved and the race was at full speed again. Sarrazin looked like being on the throttle a bit too early, but nevertheless stayed in control and slowly built up a new lead again.

With the end of the seventh hour coming up Sarrazin was leading the race, almost four seconds ahead of Capello and another second ahead of Luhr.

Luis Diaz was the LMP2 leader, whilst O’Connell was leading GT1 ahead of Beretta.

In the GT2 category Pierre Kaffer in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari was still a lap ahead of Luis Perez Companc in the #95 Advanced Engineering Pecom Racing Team Ferrari and another one on the Panoz Team PTG Esperante GTLM driven by Dominik Farnbacher.